


no safety or surprise

by toujours_nigel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aunt/Nephew Incest, Child Abuse, Multi, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 22:22:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3225617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel





	no safety or surprise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whitmans_kiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitmans_kiss/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Nature of Correspondence](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/94490) by whitmans-kiss. 



When he goes back to school, he thinks, “We’ll start again, start out new, it’ll be... well, it won’t be alright, like before, but he’s not sure he wants it to be. Before was shallow, was laughing while tumbling into bed, was easy. He can’t play at that game, anymore, now he knows what sex is like, and murder, death and blood. He feels immeasurably older, wiser, more resigned. It won’t be like before, he’s too grown for that, now. But there has to be something to it, the ways he remembers it was; he’s not expecting to fall back into bed, but something. There should be something, at least a smile, secret and satisfied, when they brush hands, Blaise pulling him into empty classrooms and pushing him to his knees; he’s excellent on his knees, he’s learnt, this summer.

There’s nothing; like he was never sixteen and laughing, only plotting ineffectively to kill Dumbledore. He tried so long, so hard, and Severus did it in the end. Taught him to kill, immediate, relatively painless. Aunt Bella had screamed at him, claws raking air. Death is beautiful, is joyous, is an event to be revelled in, stretched out as long as inhumanly possible, every drop of blood leached, every scream, every flailing blow from deadening limbs. Death is a feast to be consumed slowly. Aunt Bella is a connoisseur of death, she knows to the minute how long the human body will claw towards life. He knows. The minute words grow impossible, the minute the mouth grows ashen, the lips thin, and the cheeks pale and turn blue. The ineffective clutching for breath, and Aunt Bella kneeling on his ribs, taking his breath into her mouth; he knows. Little deaths, innumerable. Forty-five little deaths. He had thought to disappear into the cloak, like a priest’s habit, every day, every dawn and wander his father’s halls listening, plotting. And every night being unwrapped, and every morning a drop of blood, two, ten, soaking into his fine linen shirts, into the subtle stitching at elbow and neck. He has taken to wearing black shirts, in the summer, earthen brown, rust. The white of his uniform shirt feels strange; he takes to removing it after classes to inspect for signs of blood. Nothing, never anything, save Nott sniggering about his growing vanity.

He feels eyes on his bare back, scanning. When he turns his head to look, Blaise is inspecting his nails, his ties, the way his shoes are lined up at the foot of the bed, like neat little soldiers about to go marching. Potter hasn’t come back to school, or Granger, or Weasley—he is desperately glad Mother forced him to; he doesn’t know what she gave up for it, what sliver of the dignity she’s still clutched onto. He doesn’t know that he cares. He goes home every Friday, now, comes back with Severus’ hands warm at his open collar, tight at upturned cuffs, almost kind; once, miserable, he offers—a year ago it would have been worth doing simply as a joke, simply to horrify Severus, and now the tenderness in his hands nearly kills. He’s a joke, one day soon Aunt Bella will grow bored and they’ll give him to Greyback or the Carrows. How did Father not think it through—dignity’s not something to be won back, and his, dearly sold, is worthless. At least he’s not a girl, it doesn’t matter for him, not really.

Severus, one Sunday morning, when the others have left—a Mudblood house, off in Wessex, and Mother’s voice urging he be let off, allowed to go back, and Aunt Bella’s careless assent—Severus bundles him into a cloak over his stained shirt and drags him through the Floo. It’s Sunday morning, it’s nice out, there’s hardly anybody in the dorms—a girl he thinks is in third year crouched close to her books, two firsties playing Gobstones. He shucks his clothes at the foot of the bed and crawls in. Doesn’t close the curtains, doesn’t care. The sheets are cool against his skin, clean. They’ll need to be changed: he’s filthy, dirt under his nails and blood cracking on his palms and his soles crusted over with mud. Aunt Bella kills with knives, flays the skin back, gently like a Muggle doctor, probing for signs of life. Greyback gives way for her when she walks past, smiles at him trailing in her wake. Last night the Mudblood had three little girls, two for Aunt Bella and one for Greyback—two and five and nine. The mother screamed at him to let the youngest go, let her go I’ll do anything, let her go. He gave her to Aunt Bella, squealing in his hands, still squirming while she died, bled out over him. Another shirt ruined.

He thinks for a moment he wakes at dusk. He sleeps entire days now, when he can; he doesn’t sleep nights. It is only that the curtains are drawn; it is only that there’s someone sleeping on his bed, chest rising and falling with every deep breath, mouth slack, hair unruly. It’s like he’s sixteen again, the whole year gone. The sheets crumple when he moves, tacky with blood, crusted. Blaise blinks his way to awareness, smiles at him, slow and happy. He used to collect those smiles, store them carefully away. “Dracomine.” Six months, since he’s heard that; never once in all the letters—risky, too risky, but he’s said ‘Dear Blaise’, like a broken mynah charm, ‘Dear Blaise’, ‘Dear Blaise’, ‘Dear Blaise’. Never since he’s come back. All the weekdays he’s spent in this bed, never once a sign he’s remembered.

“Get out of my bed,” he snaps. “Get out.”

Blaise sits up, lean, careful. Larger than him, always that, bigger, stronger, and his wand’s out of reach, isn’t any use. “Professor Snape told me to see to you.” Like Severus is his only reason for caring. Maybe he is; three months since school started, and not one word, not one glance. And now those eyes roving his skin, careful, tabulating every change.

“I doubt,” he says, forcing his voice down, tamping down the tide rising. “I doubt Severus told you to strip and molest me. Out, Zabini.” It’s his vulnerability. Everyone knows about Zabini, nobody knows about him. Severus won’t care about the truth, never has. Not if it cheers Draco. “I’ll tell them,” he says, shrieking now, voice shattering against Blaise’s horrified resignation, “I’ll tell them everything, they’ll know everything, I’ll say you made me, I’ll say I was normal and you made me I’ll swear to it and they’ll believe me, they’ll all believe me I’ll destroy you, get out of my bed get out get out get out.”

Oh. Don’t go, don’t go I love you stay please stay please stay I’ll do anything, anything you want, please stay, I’m so alone, I’m so terrified, please Blaise please stay we’ll start over, it’ll be good, I’ll make it good, I swear, please stay, you were kind to me, so kind, I can’t bear it any longer, I’ll go mad without you, please stay. Dear love, please.


End file.
